Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Oxford dons have increased the pressure on the national university lecturers' union to abandon its support for a boycott of Israel.

The University and College Union provoked international outrage last month after delegates at its annual conference voted to back calls for a boycott of Israeli universities in protest at the treatment of Palestinians.

But UCU members at Oxford have now voted overwhelmingly to oppose the idea of a boycott.

In a ballot of Oxford UCU lecturers, to which 30 per cent responded, 95 per cent of votes were against using academic boycotts "in all but the most extreme of circumstances".

And 96 per cent thought that all the union's members should be balloted nationally before any such boycott is mounted.